My Phone Didn't Recognize Me

Imagine my confusion, and then frustration, as I went to use my phone one day last week only to have the facial recognition repeatedly tell me that it didn’t recognize me…..

How can that be? Nothing has changed, I thought, even saying the words out loud. What was wrong with my phone? What was I going to have to do to fix it? And who, in this time of social isolation and physical distancing, could I fond to help me with it if I got stuck?

As those thoughts were swirling around in my head, I was distracted and went on to something else. When I had a minute, I tried the phone again, and this time it worked…..and then I got it. In the interim, I had taken off my face mask!

Of course my phone’s facial recognition system didn’t recognize me when I was masked….nor should it have! It didn’t look familiar.

And nothing feels familiar right now, does it? There are lots of things we don’t recognize, or are having to relearn or adjust to. And it is hard…..hard for all of us.

The great disruption to the norms; that’s what we are feeling and reacting to. Change is hard, especially when it is forced upon us. and the only constant now appears to be change.

But perhaps in this changing, disruptive situation we can find some new rhythms, some new norms that we can weave into our lives. Perhaps we needed some changes…perhaps we are being asked to see things from a new vantage point….perhaps this is the silver lining in this disruption,